Introduction: 

Gather Well Psychedelics is committed to excellence in care and training. With that in mind, we are excited to be sharing our latest pursuit, a comprehensive Ethics Infrastructure. This substantial body of work has been several years in the making and is in service to ethical care. We recognize the profound responsibility we hold in providing education and facilitating transformative experiences with psychedelics that honor the dignity, safety, and well-being of all individuals we serve. We believe those in the most vulnerable positions within this field – those receiving care with these dynamic and powerful healing modalities – deserve nothing less. With our hearts and actions devoted to this end, we have developed an ethics infrastructure with the help of independent, outside support from several professional sources. To them, we are eternally grateful. This infrastructure is one that is evolving, inspires us, and holds us accountable to our vision, mission, and values. 

Here, we wish to give a high-level introduction to the Ethics Infrastructure that has been developed. For those of you more recently acquainted with us, we hope to frame this initiative in a way that provides context as to what has motivated our dedication to creating an Ethics Infrastructure in the first place. For those of you who have known us through the years, this may be a good opportunity to learn more about this milestone in our journey. 

We hope this bit of writing illuminates how the Ethics Infrastructure was developed, how it is overseen and applied, and offers a deeper view of Gather Well’s vision, philosophical approach, and intention. We would also like to introduce the Ethics Committee and share how it was formed. Additionally, we share our approach to making our work on this initiative available while maintaining the integrity and effectiveness of the infrastructure to benefit and protect client welfare.

History and Context

It feels important because of our ethical ethos of transparency that you know where we come from and a bit of the journey we’ve been on. What is now Gather Well Psychedelics was formerly the Center for Consciousness Medicine, or CCM, which had a shared history with practitioners accused of ethical violations. To learn more in-depth about our journey, have some historical context, and understand what catalyzed us to develop this infrastructure, we invite you to read this blog that was posted about a year ago. We appreciate the care people have for the welfare of those whom Gather Well serves and understand the concern about how we move forward in such a way that future harms are avoided. We are aware that due to our relationship with the practitioners accused of ethical violations, specific questions may arise for some readers. We hope to provide information here to help address those questions. 

• The practitioners accused of ethical violations, Aharon Grossbard and Francoise Bourzat, are not involved with Gather Well and never have been. Their involvement with the prior iteration CCM ceased in October 2021. We have no intentions to have them involved with Gather Well and they will never hold decision-making positions within the organization.
• Naama Grossbard is their daughter and part of Gather Well’s leadership. Although Gather Well does not hold Naama responsible for her parents’ choices or actions, in a situation where Naama’s relationship with her parents would present a conflict of interest, she will recuse herself from influence and decision–making. 
• The above-linked blog details our ethical standing on issues of misconduct and provides a personal reflection from Naama from a position of leadership. It also clarifies in more detail that the allegations of ethical misconduct were solely attributed to Aharon and Francoise’s private practice contexts and outside the purview of CCM, being unrelated to CCM activity in any way and not representative of methods taught at CCM. 

We hope this information is helpful. If you have further questions you would like addressed, you are welcome to reach out to us. If you have ethical concerns, the ethics committee can be reached through the channels provided at the close of this piece. 

Unfortunately, ethical issues are not new in the psychedelic space or any healing space where humans are involved. Even for those with the best of intentions, we all have unconscious material within us that impacts others. As a culture, we have far to go in how we work with these behaviors and take accountability for our impact. Nevertheless, we feel hopeful about the care and attention to the development of standards of ethical practices in psychedelic care we have witnessed over the last few years. Our dedication to developing this infrastructure was first and foremost rooted in our attention to standards of care and client respect and safety. We were further motivated by a commitment to turning towards the opportunities for growth before us and then sharing our learnings in hopes that they benefit others in some way. There were moments throughout the last few years when we wondered if we should give up, questioning whether we had the strength to face these challenges. Instead, we chose to turn toward them, to stretch and grow. What would we be, and who would we be, if we could not model the very thing our ethos is built around, namely growth and transformation? Rather than shy away from this moment, we made the decision to address it head-on as humbly and thoroughly as we could. We decided to do the work of co-developing and adopting a detailed ethical infrastructure to integrate and share our learnings. 

Introduction to the Ethics Infrastructure: 

We are pleased to introduce the Gather Well Psychedelics Ethics Infrastructure. It is described by a series of cornerstone documents that represent our commitment to practicing ethical excellence in psychedelic-assisted services. Its actual value is realized through being put into practice – through the actions of our future certified guides, the content of our programs, the approach we model, the decisions we make, and the collaborative efforts of our team and ethics committee. The effectiveness of this infrastructure will be learned by measuring the effectiveness of our codes of conduct, policies, and accountability processes and by receiving and integrating the feedback of those we serve. Its development has been informed by insights from various professional codes of ethics, detailed recommendations from a team of ethicists and consultants, Gather Well’s Board, leadership, and staff, and our community’s feedback and collective wisdom. 

This infrastructure is designed to support and help create safety, rather than police, creating a space where everyone involved can grow and thrive with respect, dignity, and purpose. It has been forged from our current values, our future visions, and our history, reflecting our specific challenges and opportunities. 

Overview of Infrastructure Components and Design

This Ethics Infrastructure is designed as follows. Each element has a detailed document associated with it, and the whole infrastructure is overseen by an Ethics Committee and Independent Oversight Body.

1. A Code of Ethics outlines our ethical values, commitments, and principles. This document is intended to guide the behavior and decision-making of all members within the organization, supporting an alignment of values and principles in their actions and the broader objectives of promoting healing and understanding. It serves as a blueprint for guiding us in navigating complex ethical landscapes with wisdom, compassion, and accountability.
2. The Codes of Conduct for Guides makes the ethical principles and commitments described in the Code of Ethics concrete. The code of conduct outlines specific policies for ethical conduct by Gather Well employed and certified guides focused on the ethical responsibilities of guides to their clients, which prioritize client safety, recognize the profound nature of psychedelic experiences, maintain ethical standards and boundaries, and foster a robust guiding container. Additionally, the Code of Conduct provides policies about the ethical responsibilities of guides to their peers and the profession and the ethical responsibilities of guides to themselves. Failure to adhere to this Code may result in a removal of certification. 
3. The Code of Conduct for Gather Well Stakeholders applies to Program Staff, Employees, the Board of Directors, the Ethics Committee, and others in the Gather Well community who can affect the well-being of those we serve. These individuals are responsible for promoting safety and adhering to high ethical standards to protect the welfare of program participants, apprentices, and those they will serve, Gather Well as an organization, and be considerate of the welfare of the field of psychedelics services as a whole. This code will require a signature by stakeholders. Failure to adhere to this Code may result in a termination of the contractual arrangement with Gather Well. 
4. Our Grievance and Transformative Justice Policy and Protocol outlines our protocol for handling reports of ethical breaches, investigation protocols, and corrective actions. It also details a protocol for a Transformative Justice (TJ) process designed to address conflicts and harms that occur under Gather Wells’s purview through a holistic and transformative approach, emphasizing healing, accountability, reconciliation when desired, and also to address the conditions that give rise to harms. It operates on the Transformative Justice principle that every person in a system where there is conflict or harm is able to transform and heal. The TJ process is complementary to any required regulatory rules.  
5. The Ethical Principles into Organizational Practice Matrix is a tool that supports Gather Well to plan and report its activities so that its proclaimed ethical principles are represented by actual practice at the organizational level. These activities include what it spends its time and efforts on, how it makes decisions, and how it cares for its staff and stakeholders, all in service to its mission.  
6. The Guide Certification and Supervision Requirements Overview outlines the requirements by which a Gather Well apprentice may become a certified Gather Well guide. Additionally, it outlines supervision, continuing education requirements, and other requirements for maintaining their certification via a renewal process. By having these requirements in place, guides are supported and kept accountable for the ongoing development of their craft and for navigating ethical tensions or challenges they may encounter with skill and integrity.
7. A Public Certified Guide Database will be a database of all Gather Well-certified guides that will be maintained in a timely manner. This database will include information about a guide’s practice, jurisdictions in which they function, related licensure, current certification status, and ethical standing. If a guide has had their certification removed due to an ethical breach of Gather Well’s Code of Conduct, the database will note this and give a brief explanation of the nature of the breach and the reason for the removal of the guide’s certification. Gather Well will not graduate guides until 2026 at the earliest. 

Ethics Committee and Governance Documents:

• The Ethics Committee guides Gather Well in its mission to maintain ethical excellence in all its endeavors. Its primary objectives include advising on ethical practices, reviewing policies, fostering ethical culture, handling ethical queries and conflicts, and engaging with stakeholders to foster transparency and trust. The Committee helps to ensure that Gather Well’s operations and activities adhere to its ethical principles and foster an environment where ethical decision-making is at the core of organizational practices. 
• A detailed Ethics Committee Charter outlines the structure, responsibilities, and operating procedures of Gather Well’s Ethics Committee. It details the committee’s composition and policies for maintaining independence and mitigating conflicts of interest, as well as its roles in policy and program review, advisory functions, ethical oversight, and ethical deliberation and decision-making processes. It outlines its interaction with the Gather Well board, leadership, staff, and stakeholders and how it is independently overseen by an Independent Oversight Committee. This charter serves as a foundational framework, ensuring the Ethics Committee operates effectively to uphold and advance the organization’s ethical standards.
• Independent Oversight Body:  Gather Wells’ vision for this body is for it to serve as the outermost layer of governance and accountability in our ethics Infrastructure. It will serve as a bridge and balance between Gather Well’s Board of Directors and the Ethics Committee, providing a framework for oversight of the Ethics Committee for its effectiveness and accountability to its values and charter while remaining independent from influence by the Gather Well Board of Directors and leadership. The independent oversight body will be formed within the first 6 months of the Ethics Committee’s inaugural term 

Contract with Psychedelic Safety Institute

The development of Gather Well’s Ethics Infrastructure involved a collaborative process between contracted consultants Psychedelic Safety Institute (PSI) and Gather Well as their client from January to September 2024. Initially, Gather Well engaged professional bioethicists to analyze and identify ethical barriers and risks with the Gather Well approach and its organizational policies and plans. Additionally, a high-level blueprint was recommended for an ethics infrastructure overseen by an independent committee. PSI then reviewed this information along with the vision of Gather Well for this ethics infrastructure and proposed a more detailed design and implementation plan. This was refined with Gather Well, and input was gathered from internal and external stakeholders, including 14 experts in related fields. This feedback was systematically integrated into the evolving infrastructure documents. Finally, Gather Well developed recruitment materials for the Ethics Committee, which PSI reviewed, attracting numerous qualified candidates whose applications were carefully evaluated by Gather Well and PSI before recommendations were made to the Gather Well Board.

We are pleased to have engaged this body of work with Psychedelic Safety Institute and offer here an introduction to them:

PSI is a 501(c)(3) strategy lab facilitating ecosystem alignment to collaboratively address critical safety issues related to the expanding use of psychedelics. 

PSI addresses the problem of increasing rates of psychedelic harms by aligning the psychedelic ecosystem and adjacent stakeholders, such as policy-makers, first responders, researchers, training organizations, and clinicians, through shared understanding, coordinated actions, and education.

PSI is led by experienced entrepreneurs and strategists Stacey Wallin and Malcolm Garland. For more details, please see the Deck and October Update. 

Gather Well is grateful to have worked with the PSI team. We appreciate their expertise and dedication to safety in psychedelic care and look forward to seeing their good work unfold. 

Introducing the Inaugural Ethics Committee

We are pleased to introduce the inaugural Gather Well Ethics Committee! We are inspired by this committee’s wisdom and dedication to ethical care and as a guiding force for Gather Well. 

In its total composition, the committee represents expertise in: 

• Psychedelic Guiding with a deep understanding of the psychedelic experience, the ability to navigate complex emotional and psychological terrains, and the ethical tensions that arise in direct care contexts. 

• Bioethicists and Ethics Scholars with advanced degrees in ethics, bioethics, and philosophy, expertise in ethical reasoning, familiarity with ethical frameworks and theories, and the ability to analyze complex moral dilemmas and guide ethics in healthcare.
• Transformative Justice and Legal Policy Change professionals and advocates who can design and facilitate accountability processes, provide guidance on preventing and mitigating harm, and foster a culture in alignment with transformative justice principles.
• Non-Western Healing Advocates with a deep understanding of non-Western approaches to healing and the ethical principles and cultural contexts associated with them, and an ability to translate and bridge frameworks of a non-Western approach and ethic to other professionals with a predominantly Western academic background. 
• Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility Advocates with expertise in promoting diversity, equity, and accessibility in healthcare or healing contexts and implementing change systematically to promote culturally sensitive ethical practices using an anti-oppressive lens.
• Education and Program Operations Experts with significant experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating educational programs, a focus on ethics and professional development, and familiarity with the unique challenges and opportunities of psychedelic training programs. 

The committee members are: 

Nneka Sederstrom

Frederica Helmiere

Jessika Lagarde

Anja Loizaga-Velder

Daniel Abrahamson

Alexa Iya Soro

Ryan Ravanpak

To learn more about them through their unique bios, please visit the Community page on Gather Well’s site and navigate to the Ethics Committee tab. 

Selection for this committee started with an open call for applications in May. A recruiting team proceeded to screen, evaluate written prompts posed to the candidates, and conduct interviews to provide recommendations on candidates’ role qualifications and expertise. Independent evaluation and recommendations from the Psychedelic Safety Institute informed final selections. All recommendations were presented to the Gather Well Board for final committee selection. Throughout the process, conflict of interest was assessed, both between candidates and between candidates and Gather Well. The committee members receive a modest optional stipend for a year’s term from a pool of restricted funds within Gather Well. Though it is not ideal for funds to come from Gather Well for maintaining independence, without a different source of funds available, this will need to be adequate for the time being. 

What’s Next:

Sharing Ethics Infrastructure Details

Over the next few months, the Ethics Committee will be establishing itself. After the committee has been able to do an in-depth review and propose changes to the detailed Ethics Infrastructure documents, Gather Well will make key parts of them public for anyone who wants to understand our policies around key topics such as touch in psychedelic care, dual relationships, maintaining sexual boundaries, our expanded 3rd party advocate informed consent protocol, grievance reporting and accountability protocols, managing conflicts of interest, and more. 

To provide assurance, our policies cover but are not limited to, these key topics: 

• Proper assessment of factors relating to medical, psychiatric, and psychological safety, physical safety of the setting during sessions, and clear rules prohibiting any kind of sexual touch, harassment, or relationships.
• Transparency on practices and establishing clear, well-informed agreements around guide-client interaction during guided sessions, including explicit and detailed parameters limiting touch during sessions to touch explicitly consented to in documentation prior to the psychedelic session.
• Clear practices of confidentiality, adherence to the scope of practice, and parameters around healthy, professional relationships between clients and guides.
• The independent ethics committee oversees anonymous grievance reporting channels, investigations, support, and accountability protocols. Upon the committee’s final review and adoption of the proposed protocols, full grievance reporting and investigation protocols will be made public.  

Gather Well will publicly disclose a summary of the Ethics Committee and Independent Oversight Body’s activities and findings in its annual report on its website, which begin after the first year of the committee’s existence. The report will include an overview of the recommendations made by these bodies to the Gather Well Board regarding policy changes, grievance case outcomes and learnings (while maintaining the confidentiality of identifying information for privacy), or other recommendations it has made to the Board and the wider organization. The reports will include the Board’s responses to these recommendations with either adoption or rejection and the reason why. This reporting, made accessible to the public, intends to demonstrate the organization’s commitment to independent oversight, accountability, and transparency. 

Sharing Ethics Infrastructure for Wider Benefit in a Thoughtful Approach

Gather Well has had the desire to make the work we have developed in this initiative as available as possible to others, wishing it to be accessible and beneficial to the field at large. We are also cognizant that the documents alone do not make the infrastructure effective. It must be put into practice by an organization and ethics committee with the capacity to uphold the proclaimed values, policies, and practices to avoid the risk of misleading stakeholders or “ethics-washing.” Ethics-washing occurs when organizations superficially adopt ethical standards, policies, or language without substantive changes to their operations, practices, or decision-making processes. This can mislead stakeholders and the public, creating an illusion of competence in an ethical standard without an organization having the actual capacity to meet those standards or, in some instances, without genuine commitment to the ethical standards they proclaim.

We have been in dialogue with the Psychedelic Safety Institute (PSI) about how they might be able to use our work together as a case study to identify how a version of the infrastructure can be made available more widely in safe and beneficial ways. It’s our understanding that their hope is to develop practical guidance for other organizations looking to adapt a framework like this for their own contexts. They are the early stages of devising a thoughtful way to do this that includes feedback from a broad base of stakeholders, and developing a toolkit for an ethics infrastructure. We hope this approach can help address barriers that may hinder organizations from independently developing a similar infrastructure, such as the required funds, time, personnel, and access to professional experts in ethics or bioethics. We will be happy to share with them our progress as we continue to implement the infrastructure.

For updates, subscribe to PSI’s newsletter here, or contact them at hello@psychedelicsafety.institute. See here for PSI’s description of their work with us. 

If you have any questions about Gather Wells Ethics Infrastructure and Committee, you may reach out to us via our Contact Us page to be directed to the appropriate person. If you have ethical concerns about Gather Well’s current staff, board, students, or activities, you can use the anonymous reporting form linked here. Submissions go directly to the independent Ethics Committee for review via an email inbox that only the Ethics Committee has access to. If the ethics report presents an HR or legal compliance issue, the ethics committee will notify the Gather Well board and appropriate leadership members and provide the relevant information.

 

Gather Well’s Vision and Philosophy for the Ethics Infrastructure

Ethics, as we see it, is a living, evolving, dynamic practice that emerges from the way we interact with one another and the world. Ethical conduct is rooted in one’s worldview and principles and is fostered through introspection, seeking guidance, engaging in meaningful discussions and following best practices. 

We understand that the healing journey facilitated by psychedelics is deeply personal and profoundly transformative. Thus, we feel our approach to ethics in psychedelic care must go beyond establishing rules and boundaries. It must involve nurturing a dynamic and supportive network of care, ethics, accountability, and growth. 

Our vision for ethics in psychedelic care asks us at Gather Well to dig deep into our moral frames and values and asks us to consider: What is a transformational ethic of care? How can one’s engagement with an ethics framework or infrastructure be a transformational vehicle for all involved? 

This infrastructure is meant to prioritize the guide-client relationship and, ultimately, the well-being of the client. In addition, other Gather Well stakeholders are also guided by this infrastructure in their particular roles in contributing to ethical psychedelic education and care. With this infrastructure, we aim to support guides in learning, establishing and maintaining an ethical practice, and, most importantly, to support a high quality of care for those they work with.

We hope that this Ethics Infrastructure and these cornerstone documents are engaged with, not simply as a static set of directives, but rather as a supportive system for a practiced commitment to ethical care. The ethical codes of conduct, principles, and policies we have developed are intended to provide a foundation and a structure.

At the heart of our ethical approach is a belief that there is fundamental goodness in all people, that all people deserve respect, dignity, and opportunities to be made whole – in ways specific to their needs and in acknowledgment that there is not equitable access to such opportunities due to the sociocultural systems we are all nested within. Before making change or attempting growth, we believe we must acknowledge where we are. We believe that ethical practice in psychedelic care must do its utmost to strive to understand, affirm, and respond to a vast range of human experiences, as well as to an individual’s unique experiences and beliefs. We are not all the same, we have not all had the same experiences, and this world is not equally made for everyone. Many people experience prevalent structural misattunement to their identity, culture, and health needs, and this may raise feelings of disappointment, grief, rage, and so forth. It’s the reality we face as we look towards change.

It’s our belief that the majority of those drawn to becoming involved in providing psychedelic care are motivated by a deep-seated desire to be of service to individual and collective healing and have a courageous willingness to engage with the unknowns within the developing field of psychedelic services. While there may be exceptions, we believe most people arrive here with genuine intentions to help others. Nonetheless, genuine intentions and actual impact don’t always align. Therefore, it is crucial to establish clear boundaries, protect the vulnerable, and ensure that those who may inflict harm – whether intentionally or from unconscious places within themselves – take responsibility for their impact and are provided avenues for learning and growth. We believe that boundaries and policies for ethical conduct are not antithetical to freedom; rather, such guardrails are integral to any relationship of professional care and acknowledge no one is immune to negatively impacting the very people they are called to serve and help.

Our ethics infrastructure is not perfect; it is not a final answer to some ultimate state of ethical care, but a step, a bridge, a reach toward something, an evolution. It represents a commitment to meeting each person, whatever their role is: guide, client, apprentice, staff, community member, where they are, to protect those in vulnerable positions, and support each person in the best way we can on their unique journey towards growth and transformation. Our goal is not to determine what is fundamentally right or wrong for any one person’s experience but to create frameworks that acknowledge and orient around what is true for them about the ways they experience pain, how they may or may not feel seen, and how they may or may not experience support.

We are acutely aware of the incredible courage it requires for those who are suffering to ask for help in a world that doesn’t teach us to ask for help. This act of reaching out is rooted in hope – the belief that their own lives can be improved, that healing is possible, that a different world is possible. That hope is precious and must be protected. Such hope deserves to be met by guides who are committed to treating that preciousness with the utmost care. In all likelihood, that precious place of hope is something the guide knows in themselves; it may be what sparked a desire to be of service to others in the first place. This ethics infrastructure is meant to provide a container, a shelter for this incredibly nuanced and important exchange to occur – for the spark of hope and healing to be nurtured and grown.

When we consider the codes of conduct, policies, and accountability processes we have put forth, we see them as elements forming a supportive framework for the various kinds of relationships in the Gather Well system, a web of ethical care and commitment upheld by real people that are dedicated to being present and supportive of everyone’s welfare. The cornerstone documents within the infrastructure point to the places where those in supportive roles will engage with you when you encounter difficult moments or for those in positions of power – moments where you might not recognize the impact of your actions on others. When such challenges arise, our ethics infrastructure aims to support both guides and those they serve, meeting individuals at their points of need and helping them navigate their journey in healing. We are saying- we will meet you in the shadow, in the lesser-known places – the places of shame, fear, isolation. We will utilize our knowledge, skill, and care to do what is in our power to support you. 

As Gather Well continues to grow, we are committed to bridging our ideals with our practices while prioritizing safety and well-being for those we serve and work with. We recognize the immense dedication required for Gather Well to provide and uphold these ethical principles, policies, and procedures with which to educate psychedelic guides and support the direct care they will, in turn, provide their clients. We know we are on a journey, not at an endpoint. Our commitment to growth as an organization includes ongoing education and engagement with our own ethical principles and policies. It means working with external experts, visionaries, and stakeholders to support the evolution of this infrastructure so it remains vibrant, relevant, and grounded in integrity. We recognize that our approaches and ethics policies will continue to evolve in response to greater learning and in response to the changing needs of this field. We wish to contribute to creating an environment where the ethics of care we dream of are possible and are not just ideals but lived and embodied realities. We hope to see a day when an ethic of care in psychedelics is so deeply and widely embedded into the fibers of our beings, relationships, and institutions that the necessity for this sort of infrastructure is only a distant echo of what’s needed now. Until that time, we commit fully to supporting the implementation and evolution of this ethics infrastructure with the help of community. Our prayer is that it remains a beacon within the organization for our dedication to deep, transformative healing for individuals and for the collective.

 

Gather Well’s Vision, Mission, Values

Gather Well’s ethical framework is intrinsically linked to our overarching vision, mission, and core values. These foundational elements guide our actions and decisions in educating about and providing psychedelic care.

Vision

We envision a thriving, equitable world in which psychedelic care is accessible, respected, and practiced for personal healing and collective transformation. 

Mission

Our mission is to support individuals’ healing and participate in a shift in collective consciousness by training and supporting psychedelic practitioners in the Gather Well approach. 

Guides trained and certified by Gather Well will have cultivated the skills, empathy, and attunement to skillfully and ethically serve others, fostering environments where clients feel safe, respected and empowered to explore their inner worlds.

Values

1. Integrity: We commit to high ethical standards, helping ensure that our practices are transparent, accountable, and respectful of all individuals’ dignity.
2. Compassion: Our work is centered on a deep empathy for the complexity of the human experience, which guides our approach to care and interaction within our community.
3. Excellence: We strive for the highest quality in everything we do, from training our practitioners to providing direct care. We ensure that our services are as efficacious and evidence-based as possible, and continuously evolving.
4. Experience affirming: We recognize individuals’ diverse paths and backgrounds and foster an environment where all voices are heard, respected, and integrated.
5. Transformation: We embrace the potential of psychedelic services to transform lives and the collective and we commit to advancing the field through research, education, and thoughtful practice. 

Gather Well is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization focused on education and advancing the safe, ethical, and legal practices of psychedelic-assisted services.